Nick Spangler, currently appearing as Matt in the Off Broadway revival of The Fantasticks, will compete in the season finale of The Amazing Race airing this Sunday, December 7, 2008.

After nine weeks of competition that has brought him to such diverse destinations as Cambodia, Bolivia, India and Kazakhstan, Spangler will be awarded the series' million dollar prize if he is first to cross the finish line in Portland, Oregon during Sunday's episode, which airs at 8PM ET on CBS.

Spangler can currently be seen as Matt at all performances of The Fantasticks.

Spangler, who goes on a personal journey through life, loss, adventure and love eight times a week as the young lover in The Fantasticks, is currently the front-runner on the reality competition which chronicles teams on a race around the world, having won six of nine weekly challenges.

Along with his sister and teammate Starr, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, the actor has raced through Salvador, Brazil against ten other teams and was the fastest to scale a 240-foot cargo net; hauled fish and unlocked a clue at Angkor Wat that led to victory in Siem Reap, Cambodia; painted a rickshaw and ironed clothes faster than anyone else for a third win in New Delhi, India; braved the Holi Festival and a busy outdoor marketplace in Old Delhi, India; gone head-to-head with rivals in Almaty, Kazakhstan and ate a dish of sheep's buttocks to secure victory number five; and used his impressive New York City subway skills to navigate Moscow's subway system. During the competition, Spangler won six first place finishes, tying the series record. He established a new record during week eight when he won the fifth of those finishes in a row.

The Spanglers have already won an amalgam of prizes including his-and-her electric cars, a WaveRunner, and trips to Belize, St. John, Hawaii and Anguilla.

Born and raised in northern California with three siblings, Spangler's theater career started at the age of five when he appeared as a Munchkin in a local production of The Wizard of Oz. He continued to pursue musical theater and attended college at NYU where he performed the leads in Bat Boy: the Musical and The Last Five Years. His other theater credits include Jimmy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Gateway Playhouse), Jean Michael in La Cage Aux Folles (Arvada Center) and Matt in The Fantasticks (Casa Manana). Prior to assuming the role of Matt in The Fantasticks Off Broadway, Nick appeared in the production for nine months as The Mute. His performance as Matt was recognized with The Theater Hall of Fame's 2008 Elaine and Jerry Orbach Musical Theater Fellowship.

The Amazing Race is a reality television game show in which teams of two people, which have some form of a preexisting personal relationship, race around the world in competition with other teams. Contestants strive to arrive first at "pit stops" at the end of each leg of the race to win prizes and avoid coming in last, which carries the possibility of elimination or a significant disadvantage in the following leg. Contestants travel to and within multiple countries in a variety of transportation modes, including planes, taxis, rental cars, trains, buses and boats. The clues in each leg point the teams to the next destination or direct them to perform a task, either together or by a single member. These challenges are related in some manner to the country or culture where they are located. Teams are progressively eliminated until the team which arrives first in the final leg is awarded a large cash grand prize.

The Fantasticks is the longest-running musical in the world. With book, lyrics and direction by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt, it plays at The Snapple Theater Center, 210 West 50th Street at Broadway. The cast includes Lewis Cleale, Margaret Anne Florence, Tom Flagg, Gene Jones, Jordan Nichols, Michael Nostrand, Evy Ortiz, Steve Routman, John Thomas Waite and Richard Roland. For tickets call (212) 921-7862 or visit Ticketmaster.com.

The Amazing Race Winners on the $1 Million Prize, Romance & Reality TV

Although some said they played dirty early on, Nick and Starr Spangler grew into one of The Amazing Race’s most popular, well-rounded teams this season. Now, after Sunday’s finale, they’re $1 million richer. And that’s not all: Starr also scored a new boyfriend in competitor Dallas and Nick is ready to propose to his girlfriend Monica. The 20-something siblings chatted with PEOPLE about their relationships, what they plan to do with their money and why Starr’s next stop on reality TV should be at Dancing with the Stars. – Nicholas White

When did you first think you could realistically win the Race?Nick: I didn’t believe it until we were in the final cab going to the finish line. Starr had a different opinion.Starr: Once we got on [the show], before we left, I said, “We can totally win this. We can totally do it.” I was more optimistic that we could make it to that finish line.Nick: She wrote on our application, “I guarantee we will win at least one leg, and we will definitely be in the final three.” I was always the pessimist. I’ve watched so many seasons of the Race, and so many crazy things [can happen]. You never know what the heck they’re going to throw at you.

What other teams were your biggest threats?Nick: Ken and Tina didn’t concern us. We loved racing with them and we loved racing against them. In the very first leg, we made an alliance with them, and got along with them every step of the way.Starr: They didn’t show it, but as we were landing in Portland, we said, “It’s been a great run, good luck.” From the start line looking at the teams, Terence and Sarah probably scared us the most. They were the most fit. We could tell they were intelligent. As we saw them race, we weren’t obsessed with them as a team, but we definitely always worried about them. Nick and I said, “They’re constantly making mistakes, running the wrong way. They’re fit and would be great at the Race, but they’re making a lot of mistakes.” There was a point where we set them aside and focused on us.Nick: It would have been a very different final three if Terence and Sarah replaced Ken and Tina.Starr: Or if Toni and Dallas had been there. We would have loved to race against Toni and Dallas for the $1 million. We should have raced against them. It was a shame not to have them there.

Speaking of Dallas and Toni, they were not at the finish line to congratulate you.Starr: They were not at the finish line, which was really hard because Nick and I raced with Toni and Dallas the entire time. It would be like if Ken and Tina weren’t there. They were our family during the Race, and they’re our family now. It was just a part of our race experience was missing without them there. They meant so much to us.

Starr, you’ve been dating Dallas?Starr: Dallas and I have been dating since the show ended. We actually got back and I flew back to Texas. He lives in California. He called and said, “We spent 30 days together. I miss you.” So, I went to visit him and we went skydiving. Before we went skydiving, he said, “I want you to be my girlfriend.” We’ve been together ever since. He was actually here in New York with me to watch the finale. It’s been great. We have a great relationship and were very lucky to have met on the Race. [The relationship] really developed after the Race. We wanted to be careful with it. It was something real and wasn’t just created by CBS. It’s great, and he’s a wonderful guy.

What’s your plan for the $1 million?Nick: We have yet to receive a check. Most likely, there is no extravagant purchase to be made. I’m not buying a car or some crazy thing. I live in New York and rents are high. So most likely, I’ll start looking for places to put a down payment on.Starr: Nick and I have always been very responsible when it comes to money. We work very hard for it. Neither one of our jobs — I’m a teacher, he’s an actor — provide a lot of income. I think we both plan on making this amount of money more money, and hope it will provide for our futures, especially because the economy is so tough right now. I want to have a house in California, and hopefully it will go towards that.

Nick, you’re engaged?Nick: When Starr and I were considering doing the Race, in the application process — I’m dating Starr’s best friend Monica — we were just talking about what if we were on the show, what if win and stuff. Without even thinking about it, I said to Starr, “If we cross the finish line and win the $1 million, I think I would stop and propose to Monica on the spot, no questions asked.” And Starr said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah, absolutely.” Because I know in my heart that’s what I want to do — it’s just a matter of money. That’s pretty much taken care of at this point. I haven’t proposed yet.Starr: He will soon! He’s getting ready. We’re planning it.

What were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome in the Race?Nick: One of the toughest things was simply the language barrier. Starr speaks some rudimentary Spanish that didn’t really help us. So there were a lot of moments when I felt truly hopeless and alone when I couldn’t communicate with a cab driver.Starr: Nick and I meshed the entire Race. That was probably the edge we have on other teams. When it came to tasks and challenges, Nick and I blew through them.

Do you want to do more reality TV?Starr: I would love to be on Dancing with the Stars. I’ve been in cheerleading, dancing my whole life and that is one show I’d love to be in. And if Dallas and I don’t work out, I would love to be on The Bachelorette!

BuddyTV interviews Nick and Starr, the winners of The Amazing Race 13.

Nick and Starr were the best team on The Amazing Race 13 and, thankfully, the best team won. The brother/sister duo won seven of the eleven legs this past season, including the only one that ultimately mattered. They emerged victorious on last night's Amazing Race finale, crossing the finish line minutes before Ken and Tina, just outside of beautiful Portland, Oregon. We got the chance to speak with Nick and Starr earlier today about their time on the race, what the deal with Dallas is, and what the siblings have planned for the future.

I'm here with Nick and Starr, the winners of The Amazing Race 13. Nick, Starr, congratulations.

Starr: Thanks!

Okay, so how are you two feeling today—been kind of a whirlwind?

S: Yeah, the last twenty-four hours have been pretty insane. Our parents flew into New York for the finale. All of the teams were here. It was incredible, and you know, we were gripping our seats, just like everyone else, watching that finale. It was awesome.

So it's been months since the season ended, and you can't really tell anyone that you won until it airs. What's that been like?

Nick: It's been fun and it's been difficult. It's been nice for the start I had to have this little secret to share, but it's been difficult to keep it. We actually threw out a lot of red herrings to our parents and our family. I had my dad and my little sister convinced that Starr and I got eliminated early enough to go to the elimination station, so they definitely thought that we were out in the first half of the season. My mom is a little different story because she likes to go on the spoiler threads and find out. There was actually a video spoiling Starr and I to be in the final three. She knew before the show even started airing that we made it that far, so she was a little harder to deceive. But we did really good. We never broke down and told anyone anything.

N: Because we wanted it to be a surprise. Even I had my girlfriend convinced that Starr and I never even came in first place.

We'll go into that. You guys ended up winning seven of the eleven legs. At what point in the race did you guys realize that you might be the best team out there?

S: I think it was, I would say it was right before the final leg. We were in Russia, you know, and Russia One was such an awful leg for us. Russia Two, we were just on the ball. We came into that pitstop about four hours before any other team. And I think it was at that point that we just kind of sat back and said, “We're about to go into the final leg, and we've won six of these legs, and that's pretty incredible.” And I think that we were just very proud of ourselves for how we had raced.

N: I don't know. I never really thought of us as the “Best Team.” Because, you know, people expect this season, you know, a lot of very strong teams were taken out by a tiny mistake. Terence and Sarah got very unlucky with the type of fast-forward we were going into. So Starr and I, I think there was just some kind of—I wouldn't call it cosmic—but there was some kind of … everything just happened to come together for us, and we ended up winning, you know? So it was a very even playing field the entire season, and things just happened to go in our favor.

You know, I've got three siblings that I'm really close to, and watching the other teams and the personal relationships, you can see how the brother-sister dynamic really helped you guys. How important do you think that was for your success over the race?

S: I think the fact that we were brother and sister gave us the edge the entire race. Just like Tony and Dallas had the edge of being family members. You know each other better than anybody else. Nick and I know how to press each other's buttons. Nick can tell when I'm getting stressed out, and he knows how to calm me down, as people can see throughout the race. We just were a great balance for each other. And when Nick's too laid back, I can push him forward. And when I'm stressed out, he can push me back a little bit. Nick and I never fought once on the race, because we knew, you know, we were there for the common goal of getting to that pit-stop first, and we weren't going to let anything get in our way.

N: It's also, you know, while you're on the race you really see each other reach some very personal lows. There were, specifically at the pit-stops, there was one pit-stop where I got really, really sick, and Starr was kind of nursing me. And there was another pit-stop where she got sick with altitude sickness, and I was looking at Starr at one of the pit-stops, going, “God. You are not doing so hot right now.” And I thought to myself, “I don't know if I can do this with somebody other than somebody I'm related to, because I wouldn't want to see somebody in that state.” And it was, you know, so I could laugh and be comfortable. So, you know, it was nice that we had that relationship.

What do you think the most difficult leg for you guys was? Was it that first Russia leg?

N: Oh, without a doubt, man.

S: Yeah, that was definitely—I mean, the whole day was awful. Nobody knows this, but I ran the race with a torn MCL. I couldn't work out for five months before we went on the race because of my knee. And if I had gotten surgery before the race, I wouldn't have been able to run when I was on the race. So obviously I waited. But the cab that we were in—first of all, the leg was about six hours of cab rides. If you add up the time that we were doing tasks and challenges, it was probably no more than an hour and a half. I mean, it was pretty ridiculous. I'm shocked that we didn't drive ourselves everywhere. But this one cab that we were in was so small that one of the doors wouldn't open, the windows wouldn't go down, the trunk was broken. So we had our backpacks on our laps, stuffed into this cab, our knees were up to our chests.

N: The driver was chain-smoking out of his window.

S: I mean, it was awful. We had a map to where we had to go, and our driver could not even follow the map. It was in Russian. He couldn't even read the map. Yet at one point I had to tell him, “No, we need to turn around. I saw the place. We missed it.” So that was the most frustrating thing. Just the cab rides during that leg were ridiculous.

Over the course of the season, was there anything edited out by CBS of special moments for the two of you?

N: In the final leg, there was this moment getting off the plane in Portland. We were standing right at the door of the plane before they opened it with Ken and Tina right in front of us. We took a moment, we were very antsy, we were excited to go into the last leg, and both of our teams took a moment and said, “You know what, guys, it's been a lot of fun. We've both run really great races. Let's do it, let's be competitive, and we'll see you at the finish line.” And it was a very nice—we both kind of respected each other, and we were happy to see each other succeed, so it was very cool to do that before we went nuts and raced through Portland.

S: This is actually crazy. I completely forgot about this, and they edited it out. I got a speeding ticket in New Zealand.

N: Oh yeah, we got a 30-minute penalty on the New Zealand leg. We had to sit with the sheep while Phil interviewed us.

S: We were headed out of a town—or maybe we were headed into a town. But regardless, the speed limit dropped about forty miles and I was going too fast. So we get pulled over, I get a ticket. We continue on our way to do the Kiwi and the Blokart challenge. Once we get to the mat, I think we came in fifth. And Phil said, “You are the fifth team to arrive. However, because of your ticket you have a 30-minute penalty.” So it was one of the lowest points, I think, for Nick and I. Because that day had been very challenging. We had gotten lost a lot driving. We had to switch from the Kiwis to the Blokarts. I had run over my arm with the Blokarts. I mean, it was just kind of a disastrous day. And at this point we were just sitting in the field of sheep, hoping no other teams would come in. Luckily, they edited it out because no know, you know—Dan and Andrew were far enough behind us that no one passed us, and we were just able to check in and then go from there. That's something they edited out. I forgot about that.

Okay, Starr, so we had Dallas on last week. How are things going for you two? Are you dating?

S: No, we're not dating! No, I'm kidding, we are. We've been dating since the race, for six months now, and it's awesome. We grew up in the same area and we actually went to rival high schools, so it's kind of ironic. We know all the same people, we've been to the same places, so it's neat to share that. And it's crazy that it took traveling the world for us to meet. I'm living in New York now, he's living in California, so it's long distance, but we see each other every couple weeks. He was actually—he just left right now to fly back to California because he has finals. He's graduating this week. But he was here for the finale in New York. So it's been great, it's very special what we have. He's a great person, and I'm just very lucky to have won a million dollars and a man!

So both of you, do you guys have any plans for what you're going to do with the money? And what do you have in store for the future in general?

N: Most likely, we're both at that age where it would be nice not to be paying somebody else rent every month. So I think we're both looking into housing options, and possibly putting down payments on our own places, and stuff like that. You know, we want to make a responsible choice with the money. We don't want to just spend it away.

S: I do think that there's a part of it that I will take to travel. Dallas and I would love to go to Africa. We'd love to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. So there are definitely some things that I will do with the money, but for the most part it will be investing and making more money to provide for our futures.

Nick and Starr Spangler may have not pleased all of their fellow contestants with their aggressive style of gameplay on The Amazing Race 13. However their strategy worked, as the "Brother and Sister" team dominated much of the competition before being revealed to be the CBS reality series' thirteenth-season champions during last night's finale broadcast.

Nick, a 22-year-old actor from New York, NY, and Starr, a 21-year-old former NFL cheerleader from Fort Worth, TX, were the first team to reach the race's finish line in Portland, OR, beating "Separated Couple" team Ken and Tina Greene, who finished second, and "Fraternity Brothers" Andrew Lappitt and Dan Honig, who finished third.

On Monday, Nick and Starr spoke to Reality TV World about a misconception they hadn't yet had the opportunity to clarify until now, how they really feel about rivals Kelly Crabb and Christy Cook, and what regrets they have regarding some of the actions that resulted from their bold style of play.

Reality TV World: Congratulations on the win.

Nick: Thanks a lot. It's been a fun 24 hours.

Reality TV World: I'm sure. So, first thing's first, how did it feel to round that corner and see everyone there cheering you on?

Nick: It was unbelievable. I can't really put it into words except... (pauses) Honestly I never stopped doubting that maybe Ken and Tina had somehow beat us...

Starr: See, I knew in the cab as we were going to the mansion that we were ahead of them, and as long as we didn't stop and we got to the mansion in a reasonable amount of time I knew we were going to be first.

Nick: And we had watched [The Amazing Race] enough times that you always know that second place team [always sees] the first place team already standing there and they go "Oh, they're already there."

So we came around the corner and I said to Starr "There's nobody here yet!" and we ran up there and I gave her a big ol' hug and I waited until I heard [The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan] start in on "30,000 miles, six countries..." That's when I realized we had won.

Reality TV World: About how far ahead of Ken and Tina did you end up arriving at the finish line? When did Dan and Andrew finally arrive?

Starr: I think it was like 11 minutes, something like that. It was really close and, you know, that last leg was so stressful because...

Nick: (Interrupting) It was so close...

Starr: ... It was head-to-head with them. At every challenge we saw them. It wasn't until after the green dinosaur [across from] the Portland Building where we kinda lost them and there was so much running in going from that point to the [Russian] food stand to Voodoo Doughnuts that we knew we could run faster than them. At that point we knew we were ahead of them.

Nick: That run to Voodoo Doughnuts, it was several city blocks. It was a very long run, we couldn't even run the whole way we had to stop and walk for a little while. So I think we may have gained a little time on them there as well because we were really hustling.

Reality TV World: Actually, just so we know, [how long was it] until Andrew Lappitt and Dan Honig arrived at the finish line?

Nick and Starr: About an hour-and-a-half after.

Starr: I guess they had some really bad cab trouble.

Nick: Well, first off, they got stuck coming off the plane. Ken and Tina and us were right at the doors when they opened and [the four of us] actually got our own shuttle bus away from the terminal. So [Andrew and Dan] came on a later shuttle bus. They were just plagued with problems.

Reality TV World: A lot of teams we talked to were critical of you for your aggressive game play tactics and the "do whatever it takes" approach to the competition that you took. How do each of you feel about that? Looking back, is there anything that you did that you regret?

Nick: Well we won, so you can't regret too much.

Reality TV World: That is true.

Nick: I guess the one moment I regret would be [when I was] rude to [Sarah Leshner] at that first Roadblock in Brazil when we were at the wall and I said "Oh screw this," and I didn't work with her. First off, it was extremely rude. Second off, it would have been a completely different race for us had I not done that because that's really where the tide turned and [Terrence Gerchberg] and Sarah started to hate us. It was because of me, and they were honestly trying to be nice to us and work with us.

Starr: In Nick's defense, they didn't show too much on the episode, but we had left that Detour first and we were lost for two hours on this dirt road in the middle of a field. Everyone else is driving through a city and we're in a rainstorm in a field with nobody around. We thought we were gonna get eliminated.

So by the time we got to that Roadblock and I [told Nick to do it] we were stressed, and I think his stress came off quite differently.

But in terms of how we played? Yeah maybe we were a little more cutthroat than the other teams, but we're competitive! And everyone on that race was competitive.

Nick: You know it's funny when you look back at the season. In my eyes, yes we did some questionable things regarding the race. But everything we did that people disagreed with all related specifically to the race [and] to the gameplay. It always got us a step further, whereas a lot of the other teams, they would make personal comments or personal attacks about other racers that had nothing to do with the race. Starr and I never did that, so in my eyes it's a very different situation. It's two ways of measuring other teams.

Starr: We were there to win $1 million and play a game, and we played it to the best of our ability.

Reality TV World: Last night Ken joked that you both must have "lucky horseshoes in your rear ends" and I think we all saw what some bad luck can do when it came to Dan and Andrew. How much of your win do you think was helped by having generally good luck throughout the race?

Starr: I think luck is a huge part of it.

Nick: It really is.

Starr: I would say 50% of it is how you get through the tasks and the traveling and the challenges and 50% of it is luck. When you choose between left and right, do you choose the [correct] way? When you have to choose between [cabs] A, B,C, and D, do you get in the right cab?

A lot of it is luck, and there was so much cab driving in our season that you could finish a task in eighth place and then get an awesome cab driver and come into the Pit Stop in second. That happened several times.

Nick: Over the course of the season I would say Starr and I probably... we got more than our share of good luck and that probably accounts for several of our first place wins.

But as far as the last leg goes if you look at it logistically, Ken and Tina had a better cab driver for every section of that leg because every time we would get to a task they would [have gotten] there first, then we would get there and we would pass them and leave first, and then their cab would pass us and would arrive at the next task in first. Then we would get there after them and pass them, and that just kept happening.

So I don't think luck had anything to do with that last leg because we were -- I mean, yes our last cab driver got us to the Pit Stop first -- but in reality...

Starr: (interrupting) ... We were already ahead at that point.

Nick: We had already been to Voodoo Doughnuts and gotten in our cab before they even arrived there.

Reality TV World: Going back to a little before Voodoo Doughnuts, you two were able to do the memory board challenge so much quicker than [Ken and Tina] as well. Had you guys been expecting something like that...

Starr: We knew that it was going to be a memory... (pauses) They always have a memory task at the end but usually it's a Roadblock and only one person can do it, and usually you go right from that Roadblock to the Pit Stop. So as Nick and I were going down that zip line we were seeing Kenny and Tina run through these boxes and we thought "Damn, they have a fifteen minute lead on us because Nick can't start until I get down there.

Then once we saw that it was a task that we both had to do, I mean, it was just so intense. Seeing all those boxes from that bridge was absolutely incredible and it's a sight I'll never forget.

Nick: From watching previous seasons we took very specific notes. As soon as we checked in at a Pit Stop for the entire season we would write "Leg 1 notes" and we would write down who the greeter was, what the Roadblock and the Detour was, any kind of tools that we used in each of the tasks.

Then, on that last flight -- if you remember looking at the map last night, it was a long flight from Frankfurt to Portland. I think it was like a thirteen-hour flight or something -- we spent that entire flight going back over the legs and making sure we both still remembered what happened.

Reality TV World: You both seemed to be in control for much of the race, I think you won six of the race's 11 legs...

Nick: Seven actually.

Reality TV World: Oh yeah, seven, I'm sorry. But at what point during the race did either of you feel the most in danger of being eliminated?

Starr: I would probably say [the second leg] when we got lost for two hours. We thought we were going to go from first to elimination. We knew all the teams were all in very close vicinity to each other, and we knew that we had left that Detour first but we were literally lost for two hours. So when we showed up at that Detour and only a couple teams were there we were so relieved to just still be in it.

Nick: Yeah, that was definitely the most... that or the first leg in [Moscow, Russia]. We had a pretty good assumption that it was a non-elimination leg. [unintelligible] But that was a tough, tough leg for us.

Reality TV World: Starr, I've gotta get your side of this now, what happened between you, Kelly, Christy and that sports bra after the second leg?

Starr: Okay, let me tell you. Nick had gotten extremely sick when we were on that Pit Stop. He had gotten food poisoning, so I was going in between our room and the doctors room.

Nick: I was puking. I puked like over 20 times.

Starr: I had his throw up in bags all over our hotel room, it was just gross. So you're not supposed to leave your room, but I had to go get the doctor and we were constantly back and forth between the rooms.

So as I'm walking back into my room, Christy opens her door, walks to the window -- and we're on the twenty-third story of a building and they've got the push out windows -- and she had hung her sports bra over a little, tiny hook.

Now, I think we were in Fortaleza, Brazil, and it was windy outside, and she looks down at it, and then looks at me and says "I can't believe you did that." I go "What?" and she goes "You just threw my sports bra out the window." I kind of looked at her in disbelief, like "Are you serious? Do you really think I did that," and [then] I say "No I didn't," and she goes "I know you did!"

(Nick laughs in background)

This was after the second leg, we had barely talked to them, and I had [been through] a rough leg of getting lost and Nick was sick. I ended up crying because I was like "I can't even believe... I don't know this person, and she's [saying] I threw her sports bra out the window onto a ledge or whatever."

I was really just in disbelief that these two people were actually claiming that I had done that. They're great people, but on [The Amazing Race] they were not nice people and they personally attacked me Nick several times and we never had a problem with them.

Nick: I think a friend of mine said it best when I said "Why would anybody even think of accusing somebody of that?" and a friend of mine says "Well, they thought of it because that's the kind of thing that they would do, so they could conceive of it."

Starr: Kelly and Christy came on [The Amazing Race] and they were talking about "Oh, we did cheerleading and dance in college together [in Texas]," and I go "Oh, that's awesome, you know, I cheered for the Dallas Cowboys." I think the second that they heard that, as women and competitors against each other in a race, they kinda put up their guard at that point and were like "Oh, okay, we're not the two dancers and cheerleaders, there's someone else that's just as good as us here." It was a defense mechanism I think, and they just did not like us the entire race and they did not take the time to get to know us at all.

Nick: In my opinion it was very shocking to see these two women who are seven years Starr's senior really kind of dropping to [such a low] maturity level. That was kind of beyond us. That was kind of the weird thing about Kelly and Christy, we kind of just held them in disbelief, like "I can't believe you're saying these things and doing these things." (laughs)

Reality TV World: Starr, also, we hear you and [Dallas Imbimbo] have been dating ever since the show? How's that going?

Starr: It's going very well. We got back from the show and I flew out to see him in California and we went skydiving. Since then we've gone spelunking, we've done some great adventures, so we're trying to keep the race going and it's great.

We visit each other -- I live in New York [with Nick now] and he's in California -- but he actually lives ten minutes from [where I grew up in California], which is ironic. We went to rival high schools and know all of the same people, so we're really lucky and fortunate in that sense, we see each other a lot for the distance that's between us and it's been great, so it's going really well.

Reality TV World: [Last week] he told us couldn't make it to the finale because of his passport issues, how did he react when he finally heard that you had won?

Starr: Yeah, it was really hard not having him at the finish line because [he and Toni Imbimbo] were such an important team for us. We had raced with them really for the entire race and we had become very good friends.

That night we had a wrap party, and he and Toni had come, they had finally gotten their passport situation worked out, caught a flight into Portland and showed up at like 10:30PM that night.

Nick: It was such a bummer because they were only a couple of hours late.

Starr: Yeah, it was really sad. He of course said congratulations and we had our first kiss and it was great.

Reality TV World: Nick, [following] the tenth leg did Ken ever confront you at all about you stealing his cab with the GPS?

Nick: They had no idea until a week ago, and Tina's a little upset. I guess traveling from that bookstore to the Bulgakov museum... (pauses) For me it was really quick, but I guess for the other teams it took them quite a while for their cab drivers to find it.

So I think, in her mind, it was very meaningful to have the GPS and she was... I wouldn't say [she was] upset but she gave me a little bit of a hard time about it, you know, playfully. But it's all in the past, so it's not like they held it against us, but yeah she gave me a little jerk in the ribs for it.

Reality TV World: It also looked like you kind of irked [Aja Benton] and [Ty White] when you asked them to U-Turn Kelly and Christy...

Nick: (Interrupting) Total misconception! This is the first time we can finally defend ourselves!

Reality TV World: Oh, okay, well I also just wanted to know what your mind set was behind that decision, but go on...

Nick: It was all so misleading because Starr said one thing and then Aja repeated it the wrong way, and then Christy repeated it the way Aja said it. And then in the next episode Phil even narrated it in the wrong way, so in the audience's mind it was so set from [repetition] and hearing it again and again. But here's what really happened...

Starr: So Nick and I are in Bolivia, and we had to go to a hat shop, and for life of us -- Nick and I, Toni and Dallas -- could not find the hat shop. By the time we got there we knew were last, and it was the Detour and when we decided to do the bikes.

When we got on the bikes and we saw that we were passing Kelly and Christy, we could not... Oh, and our clue said that there was a U-Turn coming up, so we knew that we had to get there ahead of Kelly and Christy because, out of pure spite, we were sure that they would have U-Turned us.

Then when we came up to Aja and Ty it was right up at the end of the Detour and I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to pass them.

Nick: We were both, like, in sight of the U-Turn and we weren't sure who was going to get their first.

Starr: Right. So, in the heat of the moment when I said "Please guys, don't U-Turn us. If you're gonna U-Turn somebody U-Turn Kelly and Christy, but please don't do us." I didn't say "Hey, U-Turn Kelly and Christy."

It wasn't because I was afraid of U-Turning them, it's not because I wanted to U-Turn them, I just didn't want Aja and Ty to U-Turn us! And so the whole situation was just completely misconstrued.

Nick: The audience saw it as "Hey guys, we're already ahead of you, and we're not gonna U-Turn you, so as a favor to us, [U-Turn] Kelly and Christy, and that is absolutely not the intent.

Starr: And the situation was just (pauses) I shouldn't have said it in the first place, but we were in the heat of the moment and we're going down [the street] on these dangerous bikes and I just didn't want Nick and I to get U-Turned, because I knew at that point if we were U-Turned we would have been out.

Nick: The audience I can defend. I mean, watching it back in the episode I can understand how it could come across the other way, but Starr was really just in a panic. (Laughs) You watched the season, you know how frazzled Starr can get at times...

Starr: Hey... (laughs)

Nick: But it came out a little...

Starr: (Interrupting)... And that was right after the sports bra incident, I mean it could not have added more fuel to Kelly and Christy's fire against us.

So needless to say, watching Kelly and Christy go down in that paint challenge in India was kind of rewarding, I'm not gonna lie. (pauses) That was bad, but you know...

Nick: But in all respects, they should have been eliminated in that third leg. They came in last! If it hadn't been for [Mark Yturralde] and [Bill Hahler]'s penalty. You know, that's such a shame, if anybody had U-Turned anybody, Mark and Bill would have been fine.

Reality TV World: When you two did that Fast Forward eating challenge in Kazakhstan, was that as tough to eat as they made it look on TV?

Nick: It was gross.

Starr: The amount of food that we had to eat was ridiculous. We both had these huge platters of food, and the actual taste of it wasn't that bad, but it was just how fast we were eating and how much of it. Sarah and Terrence were right there, [so] we knew we had to eat it faster because we knew whoever lost that and whoever opted out was going to come in last place and gonna get eliminated.

So we didn't read what we were eating. The pieces of fat, we honestly thought they were potatoes and they slid down really easily and we didn't even chew the food, we were swallowing it whole. The taste of it wasn't bad but it was just how much food there was and how quickly we were trying to down it.

Nick: The taste only affected you the next day when you were burping it up for twenty-four hours.

Starr: Ugh, yeah!

Reality TV World: So one last question, what are you both gonna do with the money?

Nick: Well I'm looking into finding an apartment actually. My lease is up on the first of May and New York rents are sky high right now, so I think that I'm gonna look for a place that I can put a down payment on and start putting my money towards owning a place rather than just putting it in somebody else's pocket.

Starr: I'd love to move back to California, which is where I grew up and is where Dallas is, and work out there and get some real estate out there. In these tough times with the economy I think that both of us plan on being smart with it: saving it, keeping it, investing it, and hoping to turn it into more money.

Here's a quick transcription of the interview with Regis and Kelly in case you don't have time to watch that clip:

Reege: So today, we get to talk to the winners of The uh ... American Race, Nancy & Starr.Kelly: That's The Amazing Race, Reege. And the winners are Nick & Starr.Reege: Oh, she changed her name to Nick?Kelly: No, Nick is a he and never was a Nancy.Reege: What are you talking about? Weren't these two sisters? Gelman!Kelly: Reege, they're brother and sister!Reege: Oh whatever. Here are the winners, bring them out!Kelly: Oh boy.Reege: Hi, is it Nick?Nick: Yes.Reege: And from these notes that Gelman gave me, you perform on Broadway.Nick: Yes.Reege: Have you ever heard me sing Francis Albert Sinatra?Nick: Um no.Starr: I'm over here.Reege: We'll get to you, sister! I'm talking Sinatra here!Kelly: Oh boy. That's all the time we have for today. Once again, Reege is living in the past.Starr: This was a waste of time.Kelly: This whole show is a waste.Reege: What?

Ken, your transcript of the Nick/Starr visit to Regis and Kelly seems to bear no similarity to the actual visit. Those who wish to hear about this are advised that Ken's summary is an inventive satire of a bumbling Regis. No such character was seen in the YouTube footage above it, which I urge all to see.

The Amazing Race's Nick and Starr Make Winning A Million Dollars Look Easy

When they won the first leg of The Amazing Race, Nick and Starr established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Then they kept winning. Having already won enough Travelocity vacations to last a life time along with Dallas's heart, the camouflage loving brother and sister breezed through the final leg to collect a million dollars. These two may just be The Amazing Race's answer to Michael Phelps. They shared the secrets of their success with fancast.

Congratulations! What was it like watching yourselves win a million dollars last night?Nick: It was crazy. I kept trying to keep a straight face or even a fake morose face. We were sitting with our parents and with my girlfriend and I really wanted to draw it out until the last minute because that episode was so neck and neck and back and forth. I didn't want them to know too early.Starr: It was really neat. Watching that last challenge with the memory board and all of the clue boxes was intense. I was getting stressed out just watching it and I knew the outcome.

You two dominated the race like few teams in race history. What was the secret to your success?Starr: We worked so well together. Nick and I know each other better than most teams because we grew up together. We knew when the other one was tired or stressed. We knew when and how to back off. Other teams push each other's buttons or they're not sure how their going to react in stressful situations. That little tear in the relationship really can effect how you're going to race. Nick and I never argued. We never fought during the race. We really were able to keep focused on winning the million dollars and coming in first.Nick: In every race it's just a matter of having everything culminate in your victory. It's luck. It's physical strength. It's mental endurance. So many things come into play. It just so happened that on our race everything came together for me and Starr. Every other team was lacking in just one area of it. Somebody was a little less lucky than us and that put them out of the game. Or they made one faulty decision.

What are you going to do with your winnings?Starr: Nick and I plan on saving it and investing it and hoping to make more money, especially because the economy is so bad right now.Nick: We're both looking at possibly buying apartments or putting a down payment on an apartment because we're both kind of sick of paying rent.

Did you realize how close you were to Ken and Tina at the end of the race?Nick: We knew it the entire time. We had them in eyesight for 90% of that leg. Starr: We knew that we had distanced ourselves when we'd gotten to downtown Portland after we had gotten the clue at the dinosaur. It was a lot of running to the food court then running to Voodoo Donuts. At some points Nick and I had to walk. we knew that Ken and Tina couldn't run as fast as we could or as long as we could. So at that point we knew that we were ahead of them. But it wasn't until we were running onto that finish line and saw Phil standing by himself that we knew we were first.

Over the entire race, which teams did you consider to be your biggest rivals?Nick: Definitely Terrance and Sarah. Right before Phil even said go Starr and I sized up Terrance and Sarah and we knew they were going to be competitors. And they proved us right. They were a great, strong consistent team. That's what the race takes, consistency. Our season they were definitely the most consistent team until their one fatal moment. It just happens that Terrance is a vegetarian and that one challenge they tried to do had to do with eating meat. We always knew Ken and Tina were a strong team. Even if they were a half step ahead of us they made the race more fun, whereas other teams it was more negative.Starr: We loved Toni and Dallas, too. Had it not been for their passport situation, they would have been in the final three. They were a strong team. Nick: The leg that Toni and Dallas came in first, Starr and I came in third and we were miserable because we had the longest, toughest day. But we were like, "Toni and Dallas came in first? That's awesome!"

Starr, speaking of Dallas, I know the two of you are dating. How did the two of you manage to get to know each other while competing?Starr: When we were racing, we were very focused. But once we were at the pit stop, or when we were at an airport, and 90% of the race was spent in airports, it was during that time. When we were on a thirteen hour flight, or waiting three hours for a flight, Dallas and I had the time to get to know each other. The more we got to know each other, the more we saw that we had a lot of things in common. We grew up in the same areas. We went to rival high schools. We graduated the same year, knew all the same people. I don't think either one of us went into the race looking for a relationship, but stuff happens and that's how life goes. It was absolutely incredible meeting someone like Dallas. It's been great dating him.Nick: She never strayed form the race. I wouldn't let her.

What were your best and worst moments during the race? Starr: Hands down, my worst moment was the first leg in Russia when we were in that cab. I knew I had complained too much, but in my defense, I did this race with a torn ACL. The cab that we were in, the window wouldn't go down, the door wouldn't open and the trunk wouldn't open. Nick and I had our packs on our lap. Our knees were up to our chest. The guy was chainsmoking and this was a two hour cab ride. Because if my injury it was so painful to have knee up to my chest like that. I should have been a little bit more calm.Nick: The most vivid memory I have is in the first leg when we got to that cargo net and we ran out to that elevator and we knew we were in first place. We scaled that net by ourselves. That was pretty incredible. Starr: We had helicopters going around us. It was really cool.Nick: The second leg in Moscow we were coming from behind. We were in third place. We just said let;s buckle down and have a good day.

What inspired the two of you to try out?Starr; We wanted to race since we were in high school. We knew we would be a great team. I had randomly gone on the website one morning and I saw that applications were sue in a week. and I knew that Nick's show was ending and I was going to be graduating college. I thought, "There's no better time than now. I'm 21. We're qualified by age. Now we can race. I booked a ticket to go see Nick. Then I called him up. I said, "I'm coming to see you. We're making a video and we're doing this. It's now or never." I don't think in a million years Nick thought that we were actually going to get on the race. It was a big surprise for him, but for me it wasn't. I knew that we were going to be a strong team and that CBS was going to be interested in us.

Kynt and Vyxsin are fancast's celebrity Amazing Race bloggers. They have this question for you: Guys! We were lucky enough to meet your parents at the Amazing Race Fancast Party in San Francisco ------ and they were absolutely adorable and seemed to have quite the senses of humor! Did they get to watch the Finale episode WITH you guys last night? Tell us how THEY reacted when they saw you two win the Million Dollars. Nick: They loved it. They were with us and all the other teams. We all watched it together with out family and friends. My Dad was gripping his seat in crazy anxiety. He didn't know who was going to win until the very end. He looked over at us in shock and disbelief.Starr: Our parents always believed we could cross it first, but you don't know it until you see it. They were so proud of us. My Mom was screaming. My Dad was crying which was very typical of the two of them.

Growing up, Nick and Starr Spangler experienced their share of sibling rivalry, but on Sunday, they got to enjoy sibling revelry as they celebrated taking the $1 million-dollar prize in the 13th edition of CBS' "The Amazing Race."

As the first brother-and-sister duo ever to win the popular reality competition series, they beat 10 other teams as they traveled nearly 40,000 miles and raced through five continents, with stops in Bolivia, Cambodia and New Zealand. Their weekly challenges included being pelted with dye in New Delhi and navigating the subway system in Moscow.

Nick, a New York actor and NYU grad, and Starr, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, finished at the front of the pack seven times, but one early stratagem during the first leg bit them in the rear.

"I didn't want any of the teams to know I'm an actor," Nick Spangler told the Daily News. "I didn't want them to see me as someone who could easily put on a facade and lie. But it completely backfired. When [fellow "Racers"] Bill [Yturralde] and Mark [Hahler] asked what I did, I said 'I'm a funeral director,' and our family does run a mortuary. But Bill and Mark Googled me and told all the other teams I lied. We didn't know everyone else knew, so we were the ones who looked stupid."

However, one team that they really got to know were the mother-and-son duo of Toni and Dallas Imbimbo.

"Dallas and I have been dating for six months now," Starr Spangler said yesterday. "It's crazy. We grew up at rival high schools [in Northern California] 10 minutes away and it took the race to bring us together. He's been great, and it's neat and very special to share this with him."

Nick said one of the "pretty weird" tasks was "gulping down huge bowls [of sheep's buttocks] in Kazakhstan. We didn't want to know what we were eating until we got to the pit stop. I told [host] Phil [Keoghan], 'If you tell us, I'm probably gonna ralph on your shoes. Starr threw up a little.'"

What's next? Starr, 22, works at a medical research center for children with autism but would still "love to be in the entertainment industry." And Nick, 23, will return to Off-Broadway, playing Matt in "The Fantasticks," where he's racked up over 800 shows.

Coincidentally, his character also travels the world, visiting exotic places, like India. "I love 'The Fantasticks' and 'The Amazing Race,' but the difference is that Matt gets the crap beat out of him, and I won a million dollars," Nick said.

Even with all his adventures abroad, nothing beats New York, he said.

"New Yorkers are a different breed, and we've all had tough experiences, like moving and carrying things up to a fourth-floor walkup," Nick said. "No task you could do on 'The Amazing Race' is harder than living in New York."

Ken, your transcript of the Nick/Starr visit to Regis and Kelly seems to bear no similarity to the actual visit. Those who wish to hear about this are advised that Ken's summary is an inventive satire of a bumbling Regis. No such character was seen in the YouTube footage above it, which I urge all to see.

Why ap? I have no idea what you're talking about. That is exactly what transpired!

Ken, your transcript of the Nick/Starr visit to Regis and Kelly seems to bear no similarity to the actual visit. Those who wish to hear about this are advised that Ken's summary is an inventive satire of a bumbling Regis. No such character was seen in the YouTube footage above it, which I urge all to see.

Why ap? I have no idea what you're talking about. That is exactly what transpired!

WTG Bonnie Hunt for promoting and covering this season ( reminds myself to watch Phil on tomorrows show )

I don't think I'll be here when Bonnie comes on but will be sure to set up my DVR.! PHIL! How I miss Phil already! And as far as catching up with all the interviews, I think I'll just listen to Rob and Trevors podcast tonight, no way I'm ever going to get through all these interviews

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us about your experience on The Amazing Race. Have you guys been long time fans of The Amazing Race?

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: Nick and I have been fans ever since season one. We were too young to apply when it first aired and assumed it wouldn’t be around by the time we were old enough to try out.

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: I remember watching it in High School and thinking how cool it was and wanted to try out for it.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: So whose idea was it to apply for the show and win a million bucks?

A. Starr, The Amazing Race: I went online one day and noticed the application for season 13 were due in one week, so I booked a flight to see Nick and we got all the application information together.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: I know we don’t have a ton of time but let’s talk about your cast mates, what did you think of Toni and Dallas?

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: Talk about the coolest mom. We loved them both but also knew Toni and our mother would get along and now they hang out all the time.

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: Of course we loved Toni and Dallas. I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan so when he introduced himself I was like are you kidding me.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Starr, give us the good on you and Dallas.

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: Dallas and I have been dating for about 6 months now. I will be headed home for Christmas so I will see him in a couple of weeks. Dallas and I see each other as much as we can.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: You live in New York right?

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: Yes, I live in New York and work at a school for autistic children, but planning on moving back to California since I want to live closer to Dallas.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Nick, I talked with some fellow racers who said a few things about you. They talked about you being two faced or lying and so on. I didn’t catch any of this on the show, can you shed some light?

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: The reason some of them felt this way wasn’t due to how I raced, but what I said about my profession on day one.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: What did you say? I may have missed it or forgotten.

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: I told them I worked for my father, I didn’t tell them I was an actor because I didn’t want people to assume I was using this to advance my acting career or have them assume I could lie easily. Mark and Bill then Googled me and found my website, told everyone about it, but no one told me they knew.Throughout the race they would ask me about my job and I answered as if I worked for the family business. I can see why they may have said this, but it really didn’t influence the race.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Talk to me about what may have surprised you while watching it at home or the videos clips online.

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: I don’t want to name names, but lets name names. Christie and Kelly attacked other teams for no reason.

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: I was really surprised at some of the videos we watched online. We hadn’t been into the race more then 48 hours and Christie and Kelly started saying Starr was overweight and called me a ballerina. I was shocked and wondered where that all came from. I may have lied during the race but I never attacked anyone like that.

Q. Mark, RealityWanted.com: Toni said 80% of your success depended on the cab drivers. Is that true?

A. Nick, The Amazing Race 13: They did have an impact, but you can help a bit by trying to be calm. It doesn’t help them to have screaming Americans in the car and a camera in their face.

A. Starr, The Amazing Race 13: I agree, on season 13 cab drivers had a much bigger impact on your success.

When Starr Spangler and her brother Nick auditioned for The Amazing Race, Starr was a Texas Christian University student who had been a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader for three seasons.

Now the California-raised Spanglers live in New York, but their country-crossing in the States has nothing on their recent journey: traveling around the world and visiting countries in five continents on a nearly 40,000-mile trip that ended with them winning the $1 million first prize on the series’ 13th season.

The Spanglers are the youngest team ever to win the race. Nick, an off-Broadway actor, is 22; Starr, who works with autistic children, is 21. The Star-Telegram chatted with the Spanglers by phone this week about their victory:

Starr, did your experience as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader help you prepare for the race?

Starr: Not only physically, but mentally. The Amazing Race is very challenging in every aspect, and being a cheerleader is extremely challenging in every aspect. The cheerleaders have a reality show [CMT’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team], and I did three seasons of it. I knew what to expect. I know what it’s like to have a camera in your face. And Nick being an actor . . . we really knew what to be prepared for.

Nick: Some of the other contestants, that really threw ’em off in the beginning.

The last flight of the race was from Moscow to Portland, Ore. How does the jet lag affect your performance?

Starr: We had a very short pit stop going from Russia to Portland. I think Nick and I had a total of an hour and a half in a hotel room where we could decently shower and lay down for 45 minutes before we had to get up and go to the airport. So it really was exhausting, and by the time we hit the ground, we were tired. But the adrenalin carries you through, and you just go and you don’t feel the exhaustion till you get to the mat.

Nick: It is really disorienting. On one leg, we flew from Bolivia to New Zealand. We crossed the international date line, and we spent like 45 minutes just trying to figure out what day it was. . . . But everybody’s in the same boat, and seeing the other teams and knowing they’re all going to the same place, that’s what keeps you going.

You worked well as a team, but surely you had some sibling rivalry growing up.

Nick: When we were in elementary and high school, we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. We argued a lot, pretty bitterly and rudely. But once we both got into college and we were separated by 3,000 miles, we actually started talking to each other on the phone. We were becoming adults at the same time, and we had somebody to go through it with.

Was there any task that made you say, "I can’t believe I have to do this"?

Starr: The only thing that was really difficult for us was in leg four, when we were in New Zealand, we had to crush kiwis with our feet. And Nick and I physically could not do it. Our feet were cut up, and we weren’t getting a drip compared to other teams.

Nick: What always scared me, honestly, was just being dropped in a foreign country not knowing the language. You are truly alone. Starr and I were a 21- and a 22-year-old, alone, dropped in the middle of India. If we get into a confrontation with a local, our camera crew doesn’t say, "Excuse me, sir, could you calm down." They’re not helping us out.

Racers talk about what a blur the race is, and how you don’t really get to enjoy the countries you visit. Where would you like to return?

Starr: For me, it would be New Zealand. We were there for less than 24 hours, and it was just absolutely gorgeous. It was a really tough leg for Nick, but I remember we were up on Mount Eden, and it was raining and there was a beautiful rainbow, and we were in the middle of racing and Nick said, "Starr, stop. Come look at this rainbow." And at the moment, I was like, "No, no, we’ve gotta go, we’ve gotta keep going." I wish I’d taken that minute to enjoy where we were.

Nick: For me, it’s more Cambodia. We actually did get some time to look around and explore there. But that place is just another world.

The two siblings had dominated much of the latest edition of "The Amazing Race," so it wasn't super-surprising when they managed to finish the $1 million leg in front of ex-NFL player Ken and his semi-estranged wife Tina and mistake-prone frat boys Dan and Andrew.

I talked to them earlier in the week about their win, the highs and lows of racing and Star's romance with fellow contestant Dallas. Here are the highlights:

MSN: Guys, congratulations on winning "The Amazing Race" yesterday.

Nick & Starr: Thank you so much.

MSN: What was it like? You'd won five or six legs before the final leg?

Nick: Yeah, six legs before the final leg.

MSN: Does that make it easier or harder for you going into the final leg?

Nick: I would say a little bit harder. There's that saying, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." That's how we saw our success on the Race. Every time we came in first, we were like, "Aw, man! It's going to feel even worse when we do get eliminated." There was that stretch where we came in first four times in a row, and then ... it was like this perfect storm is brewing. Granted, it gave us a little bit of confidence each leg we came in first, but it weighed heavily on my mind.

Starr: Watching the other teams in Russia on the second leg was incredible, because Nick and I -- it was a very challenging leg, a long leg, but Nick and I ran it extremely fluidly. We had no problems. So when Dan and Andrew and Ken and Tina didn't show up until four hours after us, we were just dumbfounded that it had taken everyone so long to get there. And we couldn't believe Dallas and Toni weren't there. But we were in a better place than everyone else starting the next leg, because they were exhausted. We were tired too, but they had had a much more difficult leg in Russia than we did.

Nick: I'd like to revise my answer a little bit. ... After we came in first six times, alright some of that was probably, some of that was most definitely luck on our part. But at a certain point, they can't all be luck. We knew that some of what we were doing was the reason for our success. The final leg, we knew we had what it took.

MSN: What do you think separated you so far from the rest of the contestants on this version of the Race?

Nick: I don't think it was too big a gap. There were incredible competitors on our Race. I still hesitate to call us the best team on our Race, because everybody was great. But one thing we had that most of the other teams didn't have was our team's relationship and that close bond that we share.

Starr: Nick and I know how to deal with each other because we've lived with each other for most of our lives. He knows how to push my buttons and I know how to push his and I know how to calm him down when things are going wrong and he knows how to calm me down. Because we know those things about each other, we're just a great balance and we're able to get through those tough, tough situations where other teams kind of broke down and fell about. You saw Dan and Andrew get upset, Ken and Tina, Sarah and Terence. Toni and Dallas, they're a family team. They're just like us. That really gives you an edge when you're racing.

Nick: There's a subliminal amount of trust that comes with racing with a family member. ... I felt I knew Starr as well as I knew myself. I never had to worry about her.

MSN: One of the things I'd been wondering the entire race is what's up with the camo?

Nick: That's in honor of our brother, Jake.

Starr: Yeah, our brother Jake has been over in Iraq for 18 months, and he actually got home yesterday, which is crazy.

Nick: The day of the finale.

Starr: The day of the finale is the day that he got home. We applied about a year ago and we were e-mailing between our family members and everyone was so involved in it, but it was so difficult because Jake was overseas in a very dangerous place. Our communication with him was spotty. There would be six to eight weeks where we wouldn't hear from him, and you'd think, "Gosh, I hope he's OK." So our camo was in his honor and to have him with us on the Race.

Nick: The best part was we felt like he was racing with us the whole way. The start of the race we wore the camo in honor of him, and then we go to a Brazilian Army camp. And then we go to Moscow and we're marching with the Russian Army in full fatigues. And then we fly to Portland, Oregon and he went to college there.

Starr: It was definitely neat to have him with us. We haven't heard from him yet but we can't wait to talk to him and I'm sure he's going to be so proud of us. It was a shout-out not only to him, but to all the soldiers who are fighting for us and keeping us safe here.

MSN: What was your favorite part of the Race and your least favorite part of the Race, excluding of course your actual winning?

Starr: I think the best part of the Race was just being able to spend time with each other and to see each other in different lights as adults.

Nick: Really it was the stuff we got to do. It was the stuff that makes people want to do the Amazing Race. Starr and I both loved Cambodia like nothing else.

Starr: It was awesome.

Nick: We took that first place after a couple terrible legs on our part, the stuff we did there was the coolest, the locale was the coolest, the people were just awesome.

Starr: It was the first time we looked at each other and just said, "Yeah, this is what 'The Amazing Race' is about." There were boats, and there were trucks and it was just an incredible leg. We were on the other side of the world in a place that people only dream about visiting. ... I would say the best part was getting to see the places we got to visit, which in other terms we never would have seen.

Nick: The toughest stuff was the communication block we had in almost every country. Starr and I really struggled talking to a lot of our cab drivers and the locals. Any time there was a big language barrier, I think we kind of failed.

MSN: Let's talk about the last leg. I think that final task where you had to put everything in order was one of the hardest things I've seen on the Race.

Nick: It was tough. All those clue boxes were really spread out.

Starr: The running back and forth, you were literally exhausted. It wasn't even the memory game where you could remember where everything was. There were just too many boxes and there was too much distance.

Nick: It was tough to remember what you'd done three weeks prior while you're sprinting amongst all these clue boxes.

MSN: What do you think led to your beating out Ken and Tina on that, because that really seemed to be the turning point?

Nick: I think it was just the running. On their previous leg, it was exhausting for them. It took them over 12 hours to complete the leg. I think they checked into that pit stop four and a half hours behind us. So we had spent that much less time running around Moscow doing stuff and exhausting ourselves. So I think we went into the final leg with a little more vitality.

Starr: Staying back and watching the episodes, I think Ken and Tina were really getting tired. They were a strong team and they played it all the way to the end. But they made a lot of mistakes in India and Kazakhstan, and getting to the second half of the Race, you could tell they were getting tired. I knew once I saw there was so much running that there was no way they could pass us. Nick and I were in better shape than them and we could have run longer than them. When we were going through Portland, it was several blocks between each clue.

Nick: Running to Voodoo Donuts was another long stretch where we knew we could probably gain some time on them.

MSN: What do you guys plan to do with your prizes?

Starr: We plan on saving it and investing it. I know we're looking at real estate. We'd both like to stop paying rent. Nick lives in New York. I'd love to move back to California. Those are two very expensive areas, especially with the tough economy, I think we're going to be smart with our money and hope to make it into even more money.

MSN: What advice would you have for people who want to be on "The Amazing Race"?

Nick: If you want to be on "The Amazing Race," compete with someone you get along with. That's one of the biggest things working against teams is the fact that they don't see eye-to-eye. It is not a good place to test out your relationship. It is not a good place to bring you together if you're on the outs. I think to be strong competitors, you already have to have an amiable relationship.

Starr: I would say there's a lot of people I've met who said, "I'd love to be on that show, but I don't think they would ever take me," or this or that. Nick and I, we never thought that they'd put us on that show and we'd win that money. But you've got to do it, put your name out there and go for it, because that's the first step. It's really the most incredible experience we've ever had.

Nick: And also just relax. Probably some of the most intense teams make some of the biggest mistakes because they are all go, no quit. But you have to have at least one teammate who can relax and think logically in times of high stress.

MSN: Would you guys go on an All-Star edition if they invited you?

Starr: Absolutely, especially because we did win seven legs, so technically, more than any other racers. I would hope that they would put us on an All-Star team because I'd love to see how we'd do again. When we first got back after we finished racing, we looked at each other and said, "It was the best thing we'll never do again." And then a couple days went by and we said, "Hell yes, we'd do it again!" We had the time of our lives. You're exhausted by the end, but every minute is worth it.

Nick: I want to race with Toni on an All-Star team and have Starr racing with Dallas.

Starr: Yeah, Dallas and I won't get very far.

MSN: Speaking of Dallas, how are things?

Starr: Things are great. We've been together since we've been back from the Race. Our relationship has consisted of skydiving and spelunking. We plan to keep our high adventures going. We plan to go to Africa this summer. We hope to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's been great.